r/voidlinux • u/Melodic_Group_3273 • 18h ago

What is the hype about Void linux

I have started to see a lot of content about Void linux in my feed recently. And I do not understand the hype it is getting. Not that I tried it but it just seems like any other distros. What am I missing here or not missing?

4 Upvotes

57% Upvoted

58 comments sorted by

58

u/Quietus87 18h ago

What hype? Void's name popping up here and there is pretty far from hype. It's typically a rank 20+ distro even on Distrowatch. CachyOS, Bazzie, Omarchy, now those are hyped.

Void is a pretty fucking reliable, rolling release, do it yourself distro. It uses runit as its init system instead of systemd, uses the blazing fast xbps package manager, and isn't a derivative of any former distros. It's a pretty well engineered distro, that's all.

14

u/YetanotherGrimpak 18h ago

And light. It's also quite good for learning too.

3

u/BawsDeep87 2h ago

cachy cheats on distrowatch their distrowatch page opens if you open the browser in the installer kinda lame lol

1

u/Quietus87 1h ago

Artix does that too.

1

u/BawsDeep87 1h ago

but no one installs that crap xD

1

u/mystirc 1h ago

why would anyone not install artix? I tried it and it was great.

1

u/BawsDeep87 1h ago

their repos suck pain in the ass to maintain it

1

u/mystirc 1h ago

did you have to maintain the repos for some reason? Are you a package maintainer?

1

u/BawsDeep87 59m ago

Maintaining the system you always fight theur damn repos when you wann update

1

u/mystirc 55m ago

been using artix for one month now, maybe i'll encounter issues further down the line? I'm mainly using artix because void doesn't have a lot of packages. I think void needs something similar to AUR. That github repo also didn't work for me because my internet is slow and that repo is too large.

1

u/Then-Explanation-778 15h ago edited 14h ago

I think it's perfect other than I have to compile ZFS every time the kernel updates, which is multiple times a week it seems.

3

u/mwyvr 9h ago

Track LTS kernel for fewer updates.

A little bit of time isn’t really a big deal to me, what’s more important is that ZFS is properly supported by the distribution maintainers, who also include the authors of ZFS Boot Menu, which I run not just for void, but also other for Alma at work.

That plus the ethos of the project and community make Void a winner for me.

1

u/Quietus87 15h ago

ZFS is problematic on every Linux distro as far as I know.

1

u/Melodic_Group_3273 18h ago

I don’t know you but it invaded my youtube feed

9

u/Quietus87 18h ago

You probably checked one video out once and the algorithm thought this is your main interest from now on. Meanwhile I keep getting shit recommended about Omarchy, which I don't care about. Just YouTube things. Don't draw conclusions from it.

1

u/Melodic_Group_3273 18h ago

Yeah probably

-1

u/Glum_Hamster_2104 18h ago

Void has some insane hype behind in especially on tiktok

13

u/Quietus87 18h ago

I don't dwell on tiktok. Good to know, Void definitely deserves more attention.

2

u/Zvaart 8h ago

lol, tiktok

As one as i tried it, it is really light and really fast. Also heard is very stable, i only have it for a month, not my daily driver, so i need to wait on this. Needs more tweaking, indeed, but runit does one job, and does it well, xbps is fast, pacman level fast, so yeah, is a good distro.

53

u/firmagorilla 18h ago

Hype? Void?? [blushes]

Void is the genX of distros, very technologically adept and perpetually overlooked.

18

u/No-Foot6570 18h ago

Non systemd minimalist philosophy with very clean repos

-1

u/mwyvr 9h ago

I’d use Void if it switched to systemd. That’s not a big factor in my view although do appreciate that’s there are viable non-systemd distributions to avoid a complete monoculture. That’s happening in the DE space.

2

u/Fun-Resource-7311 8h ago

Void is one of the last bastions of the anti-systemd crowd, I don't think that's going to change anytime soon.

6

u/MrHoboSquadron 18h ago

Not sure what hype you're talking about. It has always come up every now and then as a reliable non-systemd distro that isn't based on another distro, but it doesn't get anywhere near the attention or hype of flavour-of-the-month distros.

7

u/Glum_Hamster_2104 18h ago

Semi lightweight, uses runit, has no systemd, has a very good package manager, made by ex-bsd devs and has good documentation.

3

u/hopingforabetterpast 14h ago

why semi?

1

u/Glum_Hamster_2104 14h ago

Alpine, KISS, Gentoo and Exherbo are true lightweight distros

2

u/hopingforabetterpast 14h ago

what makes those true lightweight?

1

u/Glum_Hamster_2104 14h ago

Alpine and KISS both use musl and busybox and Gentoo and Exherbo has less shit installed by default. I wanted to say only Alpine and KISS are only true lightweight distros but I needed more.

2

u/hopingforabetterpast 13h ago edited 13h ago

Void also uses musl. It ships GNU coreutils as part of the base package but you can also use busybox. Its installed base is half the size of Exherbo and an even smaller fraction of Gentoo.

6

u/LucielRenCrisantemo 18h ago

Hype por void? No estarás en una camara de eco o algo así? Últimamente casi ni escucho hablar de void fuera de este subreddit, más allá de eso creo que lo más especial de void es ser una distro totalmente independiente construida alrededor de runit, ser minimalista y sentirse tan cómoda y coherente, en cierto modo recuerda bastante a freebsd

4

u/jonstoppable 17h ago

the hype is that there is no hype.. seriously..it doesn't claim anything or is the best for task x or has a radical approach to doing anything.

efficient, up-to-date distro that sticks to uncomplicated systems.

it does what it says on the tin, no fuss no muss.

4

u/hopingforabetterpast 18h ago

maybe it's the cool name, who knows

1

u/mystirc 1h ago

it has the coolest name for sure. I especially loves its fastfetch logo. I even use its fastfetch on my arch because I just wanna see the logo lol.

3

u/Crazy-Tangelo-1673 16h ago

A few YouTube wonks have been pumping it pretty hard over the last year

Then you had the big anti system d stuff come about over age verification and other concerns

Then you had the AUR mess that got people hitting the exit ramp on arch

3

u/greenprocyon 14h ago

It's fast, up to date, and only has what you need/want. Ideologically it's also pretty unique - no corporate backing, that's partially why I switched from Fedora/Arch.

2

u/of_the_mist 15h ago

I wouldnt say there is a lot of hype around Void, but it just works. A stable rolling release, no bloat like the larger distros. Great package manager, and systemd free. Not much else to want from a distro IMO.

1

u/MinguaDinja 16h ago

Engraçado pensar que void é uma distro rolling release focada em estabilidade.

1

u/ShipshapeMobileRV 15h ago

Why?

1

u/MinguaDinja 15h ago

Normalmente uma distro rolling release somente lança atualizações dos pacotes por menores que sejam sem realizar testes minuciosos ou até mesmo sem qualquer teste.

3

u/hopingforabetterpast 14h ago

that's where the "stability" comes in. rolling release doesn't mean bleeding edge

1

u/kevsbacon 16h ago

I stare into the Void and seen myself. Seriously though before Void I was not even computing. 

1

u/profeshamat 15h ago

Why not just use it yourself and see if you agree?

2

u/Melodic_Group_3273 15h ago

Doing it now

1

u/Hezy 15h ago

This too shall pass

1

u/chanelnumberfly 15h ago

It's as poetteringware-free as you want it to be. Xbps is pretty great. It has been over a year since I had to think about what "reconfigure -a" might mean (bf just moved to Debian from Windows so I suppose the many hours of arguing with dpkg in my youth will at least not have been wasted). I don't like how thing is, so I change it, and nothing breaks. I decided to spend the weekend installing, configuring, and then removing four different networking packages. I still have functional network connectivity. Logs are reasonable. Updating doesn't make the system identify as a brick. The dev team are professional and not having political meltdowns where I can see them. Error messages don't read like a mystery novel.

1

u/strawhatguy 15h ago

It’s a great little server type Linux distro, at least for me. No systemd, so a much more straightforward init system which is perfect for my cheap old little server.

Desktop I recently switched to Omarchy, and that is a distro with some hype, but honestly well deserved. Coolest desktop Linux I’ve used, with the least thought about configuration needed.

1

u/Simple_Hamster_4096 13h ago

Move along, sonny, move along...

1

u/s1gnt 11h ago

Just an average distro with even uglier package manager arguments design than Arch. Here comes the downvotes :)

1

u/astersystem 10h ago

hype?
anyways you can be assured that this really isn't like other distros, being that firstly, it has a novel package manager, and secondly, uses runit, unlike most using systemd or, less commonly, openrc

1

u/astersystem 10h ago

and as most others say this is the most stable rolling release distro you'll ever get i think

1

u/Zvaart 8h ago

Void is the distro i will run as my main driver if not for gaming(i am still trying to game on linux)

1

u/Kitayama_8k 3h ago

I would guess it's profile went up after the systemd age verification panic.

Also it's a rolling release that works well, so probably a lot of the first time Linux users on arch might look at void after arch blows up on them.

1

u/dsotm49 25m ago

The base install is incredibly bare bones

Exbippis is fast as balls

1

u/Confused-Armpit 7m ago

I wouldn't say its hyped at all, but, answering the question, it is just a good distro.

It has a great package manager, many choices, the runit init system, and many more things that make it relatively light and a great choice for a minimal system. I personally run it on my server, while my main machine is Gentoo, but both are great distros. If I were not using Gentoo, I would probably be using void.

-1

u/EndLegitimate9612 16h ago

Void is the best distro in all of linux. But there's a huge movement to prevent beginners from finding out about it. That's all. So move along and get out if here, leave.